We are delighted to announce the Bath Children’s Novel Award 2018 longlist.
Extracts and synopses of novels for children and young adults were submitted from 5th June to 2nd December 2018. Since the closing date our reading team of Junior Judges, editors and former winning or shortlisted writers have been voting for the novels they would be most excited to read in full.
During the Christmas holidays the fulls of longlisted novels will be read and shortlisted by twenty Junior Judges aged six to seventeen.
2018 judge HILARY DELAMERE of The Agency will then choose this year’s £2,500 winning novel to be announced at a reception here in Bath on 28th February 2019.
One longlisted writer will also win a place worth £1,800 on Cornerstones Literary Consultancy’s Edit Your Novel the Professional Way
A record 791 children’s novels were submitted by writers in 28 countries. Entry standards were also particularly high and this is our longest list to date at 33 titles strong.
Longlisted writers are from Australia, Canada, Germany, North America and the UK. Eight are returning longlistees: 6 with revised drafts and 2 with a new manuscript.
Middle grade entries outnumbered young adult by 55:45 with a notable uplift in submission numbers for readers aged ten to twelve. Genre-wise, fantasy dominated entry numbers across all age groups apart from under nines where humour and adventure represented over half the submissions. The standard of YA submissions was exceptionally competitive, with a notable rise in speculative novels.
As our judges read “blind” we’ll be keeping the longlisted writers’ identities under wraps until the winning novel has been announced on 28th February 2019. In the meantime, huge congratulations to the writers of these 33 standout titles:
The Bath Children’s Novel Award 2018 Longlist
| A Body |
| A Patchwork of Glass |
| Blood Gifts |
| Blood Moon |
| Book of Destinies |
| Chosen |
| Clementine Florentine |
| Daniel Strange & The Prime Minister's P.L.O.P |
| For Never was a Story |
| Hai |
| In Just One Day |
| Keeper of the Corpse Flowers |
| Liberty Frye and the Witches of Hessen |
| Loops |
| Pim and the Ghost Stone |
| Resistance |
| School for Nobodies |
| Storm Glass |
| The Agency's Last Case |
| The Badly Born |
| The Door in the Dark |
| The Eternals |
| The Fallen Warrior |
| The Girl on the Floodplain |
| The Glass Hotel |
| The Map of Lost Lands |
| The Money Trees |
| The Secret Keeper |
| The Skeleton and the Bard |
| The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates |
| The Thief of Whytewinter |
| The Unadoptables |
| Three Quarters: The Trouble with Secrets |
The Bath Children’s Novel Award shortlist will be announced at noon GMT on January 15th 2019.